Phil Steele All-MAC Pre-Season Teams Released

One of the summer activities as we wait for Falcon sports to resume is to follow the work of Phil Steele, who puts out the best and most informed college football annual in the United States.  Remember reading Street and Smith's when we were young and the stories for the minor schools would be so outdated it would be embarrassing?  Not so with Phil Steele.

Anyway, he released his top four All-MAC pre-season teams.  Here is how the Falcons fared.

He has five Falcons on the first team, starting with Anthon Samuel at RB.  The MAC had a major exodus of RBs since last year (check out his first four teams, I would doubt you are familiar with too many of them--8 of the MACs top 10 rushers either graduated, left school early or left with Temple), so while Samuel might or might not end up first team All-MAC, he's as good a choice as anyone else.

On defense, Chris Jones and Dwayne Woods were both named.  These are both fitting choices.  Jones is set to have a monster year, and if he does, it only helps Woods by occupying blockers.

Finally, Boo Boo Gates is All-MAC first team as a kick returner, and Brian Schmeidebusch is All-MAC as punter.  Not sure about Boo Boo--or how big an impact kick returns will have with the new rules--but    Schmeidebusch is an absolute beast who is, as Coach says, a football player who happens to punt.

Moving down the line:

Second team:  Alex Bayer.
Third Team:  Je'Ron Stokes, Dominic Flewellyn.  (Stokes gets this ranking without playing a game in the MAC.  He is a huge sleeper for the Falcons, especially with depleted receivers.  If he has the kind of year he should be capable of, he could do much better than this.)
Fourth team:  Matt Schilz, Chip Robinson, Paul Swan, Boo Boo (at Safety) and Cam Truss.

The Schilz ranking is interesting.  He is behind Carder, Tettleton and Dysert, none of which you can argue with, but he is ahead of UT's QBs, Alex Gillett and Ryan Radcliffe, all of whom are back and had better efficiency ratings than Schilz did last year.  Now, the team is coming together around him, and if he is going to make a big leap, this is the year to do it.  But, I'm surprised in the confidence.

Anyway, that's how Phil Steele sees things.